De-stress your relationships

Whether you’re a Valentine’s Day lover or hater, would you agree that relationships could be equally joyful and challenging?These challenges can bring about feelings of anxiety and stress that you can befriend and use for your advantages.

The first and most important is to develop a friendly relationship with yourself. This entails practicing acceptance and gratitude on a daily basis. For example,you can be dissatisfied with your outlook and want to change it, but the reality is that you are wasting enormous amount of energy on complaining or feeling ‘not appropriate’. How about focusing on the things you like e.g. you might have amazingly long eyelashes or a sparkling skin. Or just noticing that you have a nice and healthy hand that enables you to eat, hug someone, wave someone goodbye or play a musical instrument will be a great start. You can also spend some time with the attitudes and behaviours you appreciate about yourself.

Practicing self-respect on a daily basis is also important. Do I respect myself enough to say ‘no’ to that social commitment after working long hours for the past three weeks and know I need that time for myself? Or do I ignore my needs and exhaust myself to an extent that I need to see a GP? There is a quote from Paulo Coelho I found worth keeping in mind: “When you say ‘yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘no’ to yourself.”

Exploring what a healthy, friendly and joyful relationship with yourself means to you, will have a positive effect on all other relationships. When you decide to change your attitude for the better even the most challenging relationships will change.

If I can help you with de-stressing your relationships, please feel free to email or phone me. I hope to speak to you soon.